Thread by @jonworth

Twitter is full of wrong takes on Labour's Hartlepool loss

Was Labour too left/not left enough? 🤷‍♂️
Would Corbyn have done better than Starmer? 🤷‍♂️
Should Labour have been more/less pro-Brexit? 🤷‍♂️
Wrong candidate, chosen the wrong way? 🤷‍♂️

I don't care about any of them

Quick 🧵

Labour needs to start with the questions @rafaelbehr poses in this thought provoking column
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

And it needs to take account of the changes in voter behaviour documented by @robfordmancs in Brexitland

It also ought to look at what is happening elsewhere in Europe (sorry, but despite Brexit, what's happening in Britain reminds me of so much from European politics!)

It's like Labour is the SPD 🇩🇪 or PS 🇫🇷
And the Tories Fidesz 🇭🇺 or PiS 🇵🇱

(The parallels don't fit exactly, not least in the UK as there's a third force - the we-want-nothing-of-this of SNP 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and Plaid Cymru 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 - but let's leave that out for now, and focus on 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿)

The crux in England is this: if an election is being fought along authoritarian-liberal or open-closed lines, rather than left-right lines, that's a massive headache for Labour

That's the question between the lines of Behr's column

Labour under Starmer - with his solid backing of the Tories' Brexit for example - has instead tacked towards supposed "Red Wall" voters, trying to win them back for Labour. Efforts to dress Labour in the union flag are part of that too.

Hartlepool calls that into question.

Should Labour go *even further* in that direction? Or - as Jean-Marie Le Pen once said - when faced with a choice between the original and a copy, will go with the original?

Instead it seems to me there is an obvious - although hard - way back for Labour.

It is to relentlessly stick to the territory where its policies - on economic policy - are more in line with those of the English population than the Tories are.

In other words: it's the economy, stupid.

We, Labour, will get you more money in your pocket. Better food on your table. A more secure and better job for you and your family.

Make an election about jobs, equality, poverty. Schools, the NHS. Hammer on relentlessly about how England (and especially places like Hartlepool!) ought to be better places to live for people than they are.

This would also lead Labour towards partially solving the Brexit problem. Not to advocate rejoin (that is out), but for a closer economic relationship with the EU - because that's important for the future of the economy.

And then closer to a General Election try to seek some sort of Progressive Alliance with Lib Dems, Greens, and even SNP and Plaid Cymru with the promise of electoral reform - to finally allow British politics to have the sort of party political diversity the rest of Europe has.

Will all of this work? I don't know for sure. But it seems to me the only viable route - to stop Labour tearing itself apart internally, and to focus on where there *is* an overlap with what Labour wants and what the population says it wants.

/ends